Thrilling finals at town tournament

Brian Busbridge

Published:17:47Wednesday 03 May 2017

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The Hastings & District Table Tennis Association held its annual Closed Championships at The Hastings Academy on Sunday.

The tournament saw excellent performances from Lewis Mayhew (Bexhillians TTC) and Rose Rainton (Hollington Academy), the national number two veteran woman who repeated last year’s feat of the ‘grand slam’ of women’s events.

Men's singles champion Lewis Mayhew. Picture courtesy Mick Lane

Eighth seed Mayhew took his first Hastings men’s singles title with a fine win over top seed Paul Barry (Hollington Academy) in a tense five-game final after losing the first two.

Barry beat title holder Dave Butler (Saints) in the semi-finals, while Mayhew had a tough route, defeating second seed Nathan Darby (Academy) and fourth seed Bashar Obeyed (Academy) to reach the final.

The women’s singles was played as a group of five, in which Rainton was unbeaten, despite dropping a game on three occasions.

Tina Beaney (Bexhillians) repeated last year’s runner-up performance after losing her first two games and then coming from 0-2 down to beat Alison Jordan (Monarchs) - a result which pushed Jordan down to a still highly commendable third place.